Nov. 27, 2012

Written by

Free Press Staff Writer

Related Links

MONTPELIER — Gov. Peter Shumlin declared Tuesday that four high-profile bills that have been sticking points will pass in the next legislative session: physician-assisted death, unionization of child-care workers, marijuana decriminalization and legal identification for migrant workers.

Never mind that he hadn’t discussed them with legislative leaders.

Both House Speaker Shap Smith and Senate President Pro Tempore John Campbell said they hadn’t met with Shumlin about the legislative agenda for the session that starts in January.

They said all those issues will be on the table. Whether they will all pass is less predictable.

Shumlin made the declaration at a morning news conference, saying he thought all of them would pass the Legislature because “it’s the right thing to do.”

Shumlin also warned that the state has a $50 million to $70 million budget gap to fix.

Smith, who is up for re-election as speaker in a House Democratic vote Dec. 8, said, “I haven’t talked to the governor about what we’re going to pass.”

Smith said he also hasn’t spoken to House members, including committee chairmen, about details of what bills will be priorities.

Campbell, who was facing his own contested election as Senate leader Tuesday, also said those issues will be discussed, though the outcome could not be predetermined. “We’re just going to have to listen to the testimony.”

All of those issues were hotly debated last session, though some were relegated to the sidelines. Physician-assisted death, referred to by supporters as death with dignity, came up for debate briefly on the Senate floor this year, but was defeated partly on procedural grounds. The issue failed in the House in 2007.

Supporters considered Shumlin’s election as governor in 2010 a promising turn, but he did not push the Legislature hard on the issue last session. The bill would allow doctors to write lethal prescriptions for patients with terminal illnesses who have less than six months to live.

Next year could he different. Campbell, who opposes physician-assisted death, said he won’t prevent the bill from being debated, though it has always faced opposition from other key players in the Senate.

(Page 2 of 2)

Smith, who supports the measure, said it likely would fare better in the House than it did five years ago.

Smith has been among those blocking marijuana decriminalization. He said he remains opposed to it, but will allow the debate.

“People say it’ll fly through. My instinct is that may not be the case,” Smith said.

He said he is awaiting answers from public safety officials about whether it would save money, how it has worked in other states and other issues.

The bill would decriminalize relatively small amounts of marijuana.

The child-care unionization bill was stifled this year in the Senate, where Campbell opposed it. He said he won’t stand in the way of debate next year.

Shumlin acknowledged that allowing child-care workers to organize and negotiate child-care subsidies with the state would likely end up costing the state money, but he said any increase won’t come this year. When the economy turns around, he said, that’s a place the state should be spending its money.

“We underpay our workers,” he said.

He said he also thinks lawmakers will pass some form of driver’s license identification to allow undocumented migrant farm workers some form of legal ID. What form it will take, he said, he wasn’t sure.

Smith said a legislative study committee is due back with recommendations on the issue in January.